What Breaking Bad Would Look Like as a Middle School Musical

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What Breaking Bad Would Look Like as a Middle School Musical

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Remember when you were twelve, fresh out of elementary school and rip-roaring and ready to get a taste of the utter cool you've heard so much about, the cool of being a teenager? You might have even convinced your parents to let you stay up late enough to catch those "grown-up" TV shows the older kids on your street bragged about. In retrospect you realize you had no freaking idea what was going on during those shows, but you just knew, like you were born knowing, that this–this was cool. What's more, when you went back and watched those shows as an adult, you might even have found you enjoyed them more as a kid than you did as an adult.

Prepare for that period in your life to flash before your eyes momentarily as you watch "internetainers" Rhett & Link's first contribution to YouTube's Geek Week, "Breaking Bad: The Middle School Musical." Let us first direct your attention to the fact that a Breaking Bad that was actually about the Purest Blue Rock Candy in All the Land might have actually been a better show than one about crystal meth.

"I wish I could say something more sensational, like we found them at a rundown musical theatre in a small Midwest town, or we found them in the desert hunting for tarantulas while on motorcycles," Rhett McLaughlin told WIRED, "but the reality is, we found the kids the old-fashioned, L.A. way: through casting and auditions. We cast the initial core group for our Star Trek middle school musical [ video ], and we've used mostly those kids each time."

There are myriad moments worth savoring: the self-seriousness of Walt's chemistry explanations, the delivery of Jesse's "YEAH SCIENCE!" and even a tiny, mugging Tio Salamanca zipping across screen. Also, no one does the chicken dance like kids who may have been forced to dance like chickens in gym class in the painfully recent past. Plus, it kind of makes sense that Heisenberg would have a lovely singing voice. (Fun fact: The two kids who play Walt and Jesse are both named Logan.) We'll say it, no backsies: Tweens are better at Breaking Bad than we are at Breaking Bad.